The Clinton library is readying a trove of detail about Hillary Rodham Clinton's eight years as first lady in the White House for release in late January, government lawyers said in a court filing.

But Bill Clinton's lawyer will have the final say on whether 10,000 pages of Hillary Clinton's private White House "daily schedules" will be immediately released to the groups who requested her calendar under the Freedom of Information Act.

Even so, the documents appear likely to become public within a month of their release by the archives, as the general election heats up in February.

The New York Democratic senator faces growing questions about her husband's resistance to releasing some documents from the Clinton administration, which ended nearly seven years ago.

Clinton rival Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) criticized her at the Oct. 30 debate for not releasing more White House documents.

"We have just gone through one of the most secretive administrations in our history. And not releasing, I think, these records — at the same time, Hillary, that you're making the claim that this is the basis for your experience — I think, is a problem," he said.

Both Clintons and their aides say they're releasing documents as quickly as the archives make them available, and that the real hold up is the volume of paper.

Most documents became publicly available, by law, after five years, and the schedules do not appear to fall within any of several categories of papers that Clinton has reserved the right to withhold until 2012.

The Hillary Clinton papers could offer a detailed glimpse of the behind-the-scenes role played by a First Lady whose campaign has cast those years as a mixture of gravitas-inducing international diplomacy and work on legislation focused on women and children, while minimizing her place as a major player in White House debates over political strategy and policy.

They would include records of eight years of private meetings.

The details of the library's release plans are disclosed in a response by the National Archives and Records Administration to a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, which opens a window into the molasses-slow process by which documents from the Clinton presidency are making their way to light. (Filings from both sides in the case are available on Judicial Watch's website.

Lawyers for the National Archives said they could not predict exactly when the documents would be made public because both President Clinton and President Bush have the right to review them before they are released.

They laid out the position in an October 2 filing with a federal court in Washington, which is posted to Judicial Watch's website with other documents from the case.

"On average, presidential representatives have required 237 days to complete their review of Clinton presidential records," the filing said.

Bruce Lindsey, the CEO of the William J. Clinton Foundation, is personally reviewing every page the National Archives has readied for release and currently has 26,000 pages on his desk, a Clinton aide said.

The subject of those documents isn't public. Hillary Clinton's schedules will join that pile.

However, if Lindsey doesn't challenge the release of the schedules — something he hasn't done with any documents so far — he would be bound to sign off on them within 30 days of their release by the Library, a Clinton aide said.

Separately, Newsweek first reported that the former president has reserved the right to put certain categories of documents off limits until 2012, a stance permitted him by an executive order by the current President Bush.

Those documents include "confidential communications regarding a sensitive policy, personal, or political matter" and "communications directly between the president and the first lady."

But the schedules requested by Judicial Watch and others don't appear to fall into either of those categories, and could be released much more rapidly than the average document. Lindsey noted in a statement to reporters Friday that "Bill Clinton has not blocked the release of a single document from his Library."

Judicial Watch filed a request for those and other documents in April 2006, putting it at the end of one of 17 "queues" that are now being served by six archivists on a first-come, first-served basis.

The National Archives' court filings in response to the suit detail the painstaking review of every page for classified or other sensitive material.

"We currently have 287 pending FOIA requests, which we estimate involves the processing of approximately 10,500,000 pages of presidential records," Emily Robison, the acting director of the Clinton Library, wrote in another court filing this month.

The Archives has asked for an indefinite stay of Judicial Watch's lawsuit, arguing that the Clinton Library is responding to their Freedom of Information Act Request as fast as it can.

At a debate in Philadelphia on Oct. 30, Clinton blamed delays on bureaucracy.

"The Archives is moving as rapidly as the Archives moves. There's about 20 million pieces of paper there and they are moving, and they are releasing as they do their process. And I am fully in favor of that," she said.

She did not directly defend Bill Clinton's decision to put some documents out of reach until 2012.

But the bureaucracy that will set the pace for the release of her schedules is under Clinton's control.

Clinton is unique among the candidates for president in facing the release of internal government documents that could shed light on her record.

The Senate records generated by Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, for instance, are exempt from FOIA, and neither has shown any inclination to release them.

A lawyer with Judicial Watch, Paul Orfanedes, said he now accepts the library's timetable for processing the calendar but is arguing that the schedules should be released without review by Clinton or Bush.

He said that Judicial Watch will file a response Nov. 7 arguing that a court ruling striking down part of Bush's executive order should be extended to end the former president's ability to review documents prior to their release.

"We don't object to them having until January to finish doing what they do," he said.

"What we do object to is this indefinite stay of our lawsuit pending the thumbs up or thumbs down from either Clinton or Bush as to whether or not the calendar will be released."